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Are you a DM? Do you need a clever trap but have no time or imagination? Then do we have a thread for you Explosive Runes. There are all sort of traps that we would like to make but cannot properly implement due to difficulty or vast complexity of the trap. Let's come up with some good, mostly simple traps everyone.

Let me kick things off with:

1. The PCs hear growling in the next room (just a magically looping recording through a speaker). Through the door is a long, darkened (but not completely dark) hallway that the PCs are unable to see the other side of. Eventually the PCs find that the hallway just goes on and on and on and on and on...
This trap is actually a teleportation trap. When the PCs get so far down a long hall, let's say 2/3 of the way through, they are teleported back to about the 1/3 mark of the hall. This is a good way to kill time to wear out buff spells that the PCs will have cast before entering the hall and wasted.
If the PCs see that they are looping back with Search checks or by having one person scout ahead and come up from behind his allies, then the PCs can avoid the teleportation effect by making an Escape Artist check (aided by Balance if they have 5+ ranks) to slide against the wall around the teleport field (it is 3 feet away from both walls).

Let's see what traps you can come up with for beginner players and DMs.

The PC's enter a 15 foot, by 15 foot room. On the far side is a locked door. in the middle of theh room is a time telling device, but the hands are movable. They are also detachable. but come back if you are not touching the squares adjacent to the time telling device. Just use as the returning ranged magic weapon effect. One is red, and has in absyll: 1, the other is dragonic and reads: 2.
There are 2 runes of each side, one north, one south. the north one reads, in dragonic: OPEN, while the other reads in absyll: CLOSE. One of the two hands is facing one of them, one racing open, other facing closed.
If both hands are put on open, the time telling device explodes dealing 4d8+12 to everyone in the room. but also opens the door. If both hands are on closed, then the same thing happens.
a DC search check 20 reveals a small hole on each side of it, if BOTH clock hands are inserted into the things, then itn will work. but the Absyll one MUST go in the dragonic one. and vis versa. If they are inserted the wrong way, the same thing happens as above, but dealing a critical hit X2.

Simple pit trap - worked well as follows ; pit has two flaps over it first one has its pivot at the near end and is 10 feet long . Second flap has its pivot half way along its length and is also 10 feet long . A spring loaded prop supports the first flap ( by flap i mean a foot or two thick section ) and does not collapse until 200 lbs is at the far end of it - usually this is the fighter - it then swings down and thanks to a lip at the bottom edge the other flap now swings downwards as well . The theif , who is usually very light goes across and pronounces that all is well so then the rest of the party follows . When the big heavy fighter in all his heavy armour crosses he sets off the trap , which would be a reflex save - not exactly a fighters forte - and drops into the very deep pit . Other PC's after hearing from the rogue that all is clear would probably be close behind . Anyone trying to jump backwards has a long way to go , anyone trying to jump forward has a 5 foot wall in front of them now . For a really nasty touch make the force of the PC's hitting the pit floor the driver for some gears to close the flaps !! :D

I like the pit-trap. However, there has to be a way passed it if it was constructed as part of someone's defense. How do they get passed if without falling for their own trap?

So, in your construction, the pits are always shifted to one side, meaning their is a walkway that is safe on an edge. Now, this pushes for a balance check (or a jump if they characters want to try that).

After a few of these traps, have two ledges on a couple traps. One ledge is safe. The other is not!

Towards the end of the adventure, the bypasses to the trap must change.

The key to this is to setup the rogue's expectation that the next trap is bypassed like the one before.

Another thing: Making characters bypass a trap that isn't a trap is funny... Make the pit a foot deep. They don't know that but make the trapdoors easy to spot. They'll think of all kinds of ways to bypass what really isn't a problem at all. (this works well with doors that don't open anywhere. There's just rock behind them. Could always put something behind the door to make noise just to make it interesting - or in the pit.)

the pillars of jumping.
a set of pillars is over a 250 foot hole in the ground. with spikes at the bottom. comved in knock out poisen. and ebola... well not really... but they're really dangerous spikes...
The pillars are 1 foot apart. and you enter a room with the tops of the pillars showing. when you jump on the first pillar it's all good. second pillar is an illusion. making you fall rite through it. so is the 4th, and 7th pillar.
They are such losers. the PC's must DIE!

I posted this trap on a thread similar to this one. It requires a bit of thinking on the PCs part.

4. The PCs enter the room, and a huge stone slab falls from the ceiling, trapping them in the room. The floor of the room is divided up into 5ft by 5ft tiles, except for where the PCs are standing. Each tile is also inscribed with a letter. Across the room, the PCs can see a door, and next to the door is a switch. Inscribed on the floor the PCs are standing, is a simple riddle in common. The PCs must spell out the answer by stepping on the tiles. If they step on a wrong tile, an arrow will shoot out of the wall (CR1 Basic Arrow Trap), a poisoned dart will shoot out of the wall (CR1 Poison Dart Trap), or a stone block will fall from the ceiling (CR1 Swinging Block Trap). The switch on the other side of the room will disable all the traps and raise the stone slab. Oh, did I mention that the letters on the tiles are in a language none of the PCs can read :D !

I posted this trap on a thread similar to this one. It requires a bit of thinking on the PCs part.

4. The PCs enter the room, and a huge stone slab falls from the ceiling, trapping them in the room. The floor of the room is divided up into 5ft by 5ft tiles, except for where the PCs are standing. Each tile is also inscribed with a letter. Across the room, the PCs can see a door, and next to the door is a switch. Inscribed on the floor the PCs are standing, is a simple riddle in common. The PCs must spell out the answer by stepping on the tiles. If they step on a wrong tile, an arrow will shoot out of the wall (CR1 Basic Arrow Trap), a poisoned dart will shoot out of the wall (CR1 Poison Dart Trap), or a stone block will fall from the ceiling (CR1 Swinging Block Trap). The switch on the other side of the room will disable all the traps and raise the stone slab. Oh, did I mention that the letters on the tiles are in a language none of the PCs can read :D !

A langauge no one reads. My only guess is uncommon. I mean come on. It even says no one speaks it, in the name!

A langauge no one reads. My only guess is uncommon. I mean come on. It even says no one speaks it, in the name!

No. Just choose a language none of the PCs know. No Druid in the party, choose druidic. The PCs are a bunch of dwarves, choose elven. The PCs can still use Decipher Script (DC 25) or Comprehend Language.

Sorry Kimokeo , i did forget to mention , this was a trap in a Dwarven tomb that was just a red herring , it led to a dead end . The smaller Dwarves , who would know about the trap , would cross those sections only one at a time and not set off the weight limit in the trap design if they ever needed to go that way . A little off topic but , somethinig i also used for that adventure was to have rooms with 2 secret doors . One door has a relatively low DC and is a red herring for grave robbers , the other DC is 3-5 points higher and is the real passage that the priests would have used .

PC's enter a room, with two doors, one opposite them, and one they entered through.
On the floor are multi-coloured tiles (1 per PC) (make the tiles a geometric mixture of lots of different coloured triangles that criss-cross, and make each on different).
When the PC's exit the door opposite them it brings them back into the room through the door they came in.
Make sure you point out the significance of the tiles.
When PC's stand on them and move through, have some fun with them by bringing them back into the room in different orders, have PC's turn up five minutes later, etc.
The tiles have no significance whatsoever - the PC's can exit the room by going back out the door they came in.

Believe it or not, that kept my group going for an hour and a half.
At one point one was chopping a hole in the wall, and another was prying up the tiles from the floor.

a trapped gold ingot with a sleep spell on it and a giant spider on the ceiling. this got a rogue in my party but tragiccally the cleric made us save him. he ha s since then gotten three party members killed (by a vat of hot oil he dropped on an opponent who was in melee with the fighter, by releasing a mummy and then running away and closing the door trapping the rest of the party in a confined space with it, and finally by su ndering the BBEGs wand of fireball.) fortunately, the last one killed him too

11. The PC's Enter large round room, maybe 60' in diameter. Across the room is a stone door with a really tough lock. The Party's Rogue will have to pick it for a long time, or the fighters will have to beat it for a while before it crumbles.
The ground is made of sand, and the ceiling appears to be made of glass, the topside of which is covered in gold coins. This is how you find out who the greedy guy in your party is. It only takes one projectile from a crossbow, sling, bow, etc. to completely shatter the glass. The weight of the coins causes it to break further, and all under the glass (everyone in the room) must make a Reflex save of whatever the DM deems fair ( )or take 3d6 damage from the falling glass. About two rounds after, while everyone is buzzing around picking up gold pieces, they realize the glass was not only holding back coins. A poisonous gas begins seeping down towards the ground, and every round their in it, they have to make a Fort save or fall unconscious. That could put some pressure on the guy trying to get the door open. If they just run back the way they came, the DM could make it so that the room can't be entered again, and now they have to take "the long way" around. :D

12.) The PC's enter a long hallway at a T-junction. There is a small step down into the hall, which appears to be about 70'-90' feet long and ten feet across. Down one end appears to be a dead in wall with a bunch of holes in it, down the other end appears to be a door. Once everyone is in the hallway, they here a grinding noise, and the floor starts to slowly move towards the dead end wall. They now notice the floor is made of rubber. The movement increases in speed until the PC's find themselves running. This is pretty much a big treadmill, and the wall with the holes in it now has spike sticking through them. Anyone who is taken into that wall will be impaled on the spikes for 5d6 damage (or however much you like.) In any case, the trick is to run as fast as you can, which could be difficult for heavily burdened or armed folk, and remember, you're only moving about 5-10
forward a turn. About ten feet in front of the door is a stone platform that
the players can jump onto for safety. For every round a PC remains on the treadmill, they have to roll a balance check of about 10 to stay on their feet. If they fail, then they lose about ten feet, and are that much more closer to the spikes.
There is a switch in the wall on the platform by the door that many will mistake to be the 'off' switch. The trick is the machine starts when all feet hit the rubber, and stop when all of them are off. Whoever hits the switch only reverses the direction of the treadmill, knocking everone still on it down and catapulting them onto the platform, perhaps breaking throught the door.
If you are the type of DM like I am, you will perhaps put some hulking bad guys on the other side of that door ready to hack & slash at the PC's who are out of breath and fatigued.
Have fun.

13.When they go into a room you could have a a trap door on the floor and when they step on it of course they fall in.But the best part of this is to have a portal in the bottom and one in the ceiling so they continuosly fall through the floor and come out the ceiling over and over again until the figure out a way to stop themselves.Actually happened to my cousin in the game Narbacular Drop where you make portals to get around this world while trying to get some bolders in place...well anyways its not an RPG but I think its a funny idea :evillaugh

Thank you very much Kraleck, I'm glad you enjoyed those two traps. A while back ago I came up with a list of good traps for a competition I never got around to entering in. The two traps of mine above are included in this list. Unfortunately I only have an un-editable version to put on here, so those two traps will be included, hope you don't mind, but it will totally be worth it...

Tricks and Traps

1: You’re pulling my chain...

The PC’s get to the end of a hall, and come upon a chain dangling from a hole in the ceiling and a smooth stone slab door. Written on the door is the message “A test of Strength Lies Beyond”. If your PC’s are smart, they will make it so their heavy hitters and fighters will be the first in the room for what lies ahead. The chain obviously opens the door, simply pulling down on it with a Strength Check of about 12 will open the door quite easily. Whoever grasps the chain will feel as though the metal links are wet.
When the chain is yoinked, the door is raised and the fighters rush in, ready for battle, but find a nearly empty room. The room is 100' long, and about 50' wide, and completely dark. There is a small step down through the threshold, leaving everyone standing in shin deep water. About thirty feet away, hanging from the ceiling, about five feet above the water, are two, fat, parallel metal bars, arcs of lightning bounce back and forth between them.
The PC’s will now hear a sickening, wooden crack. That was the ancient block and tackle system that allowed for such an easy Strength Check to lift a heavy stone door and two metal electrodes bursting into hundreds of pieces. The Strength Check to keep the door open and the electrodes in the air is now about 20 or higher. It should be noted that it is at about this point the PC holding the chain realizes his hands have been Sovereign Glued to the chain, and he cant let go. There are a few busted pillar pieces laying around inside the room the others could try to seek refuge on, but they would only allow one person to stay on. They could try to push these under the electrodes to keep them from breeching the water, but they weight about a ton a piece.
Another PC may go back through the door and help the other keep the chain pulled so that the electrodes and the door don’t plunge, but they too, will become glued to the chain.
If all else fails, and the PC holding the chain cannot keep the chain pulled down, all in the room are now trapped and will be electrocuted for 5d6 damage (or more >D) for every round the electrodes are in the water.
The trick is that at the end of the room sits a small table, and on it sits a tube of Universal Solvent with enough for one application. If the person can make it back to the door in time, they can fix the PC right up, unless of course, there are now two holding on to it.
Rather than just being a jerk, it might be a good idea to put a vast treasure in the room, give the PC’s reason to continue risking the chance of going back inside time after time.
If another PC is glues to the chain, it might be an entire side quest in itself to find a way to get him unstuck.

2: Run for Your Life...

The PC’s appear to step through a door in the middle of a very long hallway. There is a door to the left and a wall with spikes at the other end. If they venture out, they will note that the floor appears to made out of rubber. When the last person steps out onto the hallway, the party hears a low rumble then a whining noise. The floor suddenly begins to move towards the spiked wall. The PC's are basically on a large treadmill that begins pulling them

towards danger. If thePC’s make a run for itthey will have to makea Balance check of 15 to ensure they stay on , their feet while running on the conveyer belt. If they fail, they fall and zoom towards the spiked wall at about 50 feet a round and must make a Balance check of 15 just to stand back up. They should also realize that though they maybe able to move at 4x their regular speed, they only move a few feet every round. The last ten feet of the hall towards the left is stone, and the PC’s must make a Jump check of 14 to make it onto the stone floor. Once there, there is a switch in the wall. If the players assume it is a stop switch, they are wrong.
Throwing the switch merely reverses the direction of the treadmill. If any are unfortunate enough to hit the spikes, they take 3d8 piercing damage, an evilly aligned DM might make them diseased or poisoned. They will remain on the spike and take an additional 1d8 damage every round until someone throws the switch. When that occurs, the PC’s remaining must make a Balance check of 30 or fall to the ground as they are suddenly pitched forward, and eventually shot off the treadmill. The conveyer will not actually stop until everyone is off. PC’s on the treadmill being hurled into the PC’s on the stone floor near the door will end up doing lots of bludgeoning damage to each other and probably break through the door too. An evil aligned DM might put a long, steep staircase on the other side of the door, or a room full of Orcs or Bugbears in the middle of evening chow.

3. Chimney Sweep...

The players come to a room with what looks like a chimney, which is in fact a tunnel leading up. It is about a 200 foot climb, but the chimney is studded with smooth stones for many foot and hand holds. The tunnel is narrow, so the players will have to go one at a time up the chimney. About halfway up, there is a trigger stone. Whoever trips the stone will afterwards be awarded a Concentration check of 20 to remember what the stone felt like. Rough, and sharp.
The trigger stone releases a spiked weight that is in place at the very top of the chimney, and causes it to fall at an alarming speed. Faster than the PC’s can climb down, and they will probably find that just letting go and falling is the fastest way down. If the players make a successful jump check, the first ten feet of the fall go by with no damage, otherwise, every other ten feet they fall is 1d6 worth of gravity damage. If they are hit by the weight, they take 4d8 piercing damage, and another 1d8 bludgeoning from the weight itself, not to mention they weight will knock them free from the tunnel, and they take whatever falling damage is left. If there are multiple people in the tunnel, it is likely that one falling will cause a chain reaction to cause a massive pile up at the bottom of the chimney.
The weight will stop with a jerk about 10 feet from the bottom of the tunnel, and then slowly crank back up to its usual position as the trap resets itself. Every player has about a 50% chance of triggering the trap, but if the person who tripped it can remember what the trigger stone felt like, and divulges this info to the rest of the party, that percentage drops to about 5%.
Even if the PC’s think they can scramble up the tunnel while the trap is resetting itself are sorely mistaken, for if the trigger is tripped, no matter where the weight is, it will fall, and then start back up.

4. People in glass houses...

The Adventurers enter a round room about 35 feet or so in diameter. The room is filled with sand and there is nothing too special about it, except that the door leading out of the room is heavy steel with a wickedly tough lock that looks as though it needs a key. The ceiling, about 40 feet above, appears to be made of glass, and sitting on this glass sits a vast quantity of gold, or platinum, depending on how good a mood you’re in. Any yahoo will figure out the easiest way to get the cash down is to throw something at it like a rock or a boot. Even a bolt from a crossbow will shatter the glass. All must make a reflex save of 12 to negate falling glass damage. Once that’s done, it’s like Cinco de Mayo when the pinata’s meet its fate.
However...
The glass separated the room from about another five feet of altitude. Contained in the portion above the glass was a poisonous gas that begins to seep down to the players in about 1d2 rounds. Hopefully someone’s been working on the door, because the look is going to take about a DC of 45 or 50 to open, or about five rounds of continuous 20 to 25's to open the sucker. The poison takes a Fort save of 18 every round to keep from taking 1d10 Wis and/or Int damage. The door you came through can let you out, but the gas will keep coming out until you’re outside. The only way to separate yourself from it is to get the hell through the sealing steel door. If your players lose this and all pass out, maybe you should have them all wake up a few days later in nothing but their skives. Maybe that will teach them to secure a way out before attempting a get-rich-quick scheme in the room. If you’re nice, maybe you can put the key to the door in with the gold or platinum that has fallen. Search check of 16 or so. Remember, if you’re taking 1d10 Wis and Int damage every round, it might start getting harder and harder to find that key.

5. Into the Meat Grinder

This is more of a trap to freak your PC’s out. Somewhere deep in a sadistic bastard’s dungeon,
make it so that the only way to continue is through a long, sharp angled chute. The room it sits in is about twenty by twenty, and the lip of the chute sticks about three or feet up into the air in the center of the room, surrounded by sand bags.
After two people have gone down, take that NPC that no one likes or you’ve been meaning to kill off and have him go next. The room the PC’s end up looks like the room they jumped down the chute in, the only difference is the chute is sticking out of a wall and not the floor. When the NPC hops down the others in the room hear a loud “ERRRRUM” and the NPC lands in the exit room in two halves length-wise. The PC’s will now freak out. The trick is that every third person that goes down causes a buzz saw to pop up in the middle of the slide about halfway down the chute. If the PC’s are smart, they will use the bags of sand to set the trigger off once they time it right.

6. He...could...go...all...the...’SPLAT’

This is more of a comical trap than anything that will cause damage. In a relatively short, narrow hallway, the floor is suddenly split by a five foot wide, ten foot across, and five foot deep pit. No problem. The first person who jumps across should have detected magic. About halfway across is an invisible wall. When the PC takes that running jump, he’ll hit that thing like a fly hitting a windshield, and then slowly slide down. The trick is to just climb down into the pit, walk under the wall, and climb up the other side. Hitting the wall with that running jump might cause 2d6 or so damage, but make it subdual, I mean, what are you, a jerk . O-o

7. Shredded PC

This is a good sadistic trap to put in a fighting arena. The room should be relatively large, and have lots of levels for fighting, with lots of cauldrons of burning tar for light, and other stuff. Put some heavy hitting enemies in the room, like some ogres or trolls. Ever some-odd feet, there is a five by five foot shaft. Falling in, or getting knocked into, rather, is a new level of pain all together. After good forty foot drop, the tunnel takes a 45 degree slope, and has protrusions in the surface much like a cheese grater. After so many feet of this (5d6 or 5d8 worth of damage) the player takes another vertical spill and lands in a forty by forty by five foot deep vat of salt water. This should probably just deal subdual damage, but it is very sadistic non the less. The only way he’s getting out is climb back out the way he went.

A solid wooden (or metal) door with X number of locks on it (I made it 20). It took the rogue a while, but finally he had unlocked all the locks and opened the door. behind the door, a solid brick wall!

22) Cloaker pit: A varient on the classic illusion pit have a cloaker hide in a pit with a darkness spell over it. Have the cloaker use its silent image ability to create an image of a foe, wait for char to fall in pit and be engulfed by cloaker. Should players figure it out have cloaker rise from pit and attack. (note cloaker needs to speak common to understand when players figure it out)

#23) The players enter a very wide, very long room, say 45 by 100 feet long, every 5 x 5 foot space of the floor all the way to the end alternates black and white, so you end up with a large checkerboard pattern. On the other side of this room sits a pedestal or alter that holds the lost relic or whatever your adventurers might be looking for.
Now, when I ran this trap, my PC's figured out what I at first planned the trap to be, one of the colors is rigged to set off a trap the moment someone stepped on it, so they bypassed it easily.
Later on in the campaign, I tried an alternate version of the trap, instead of just one color, I made it a bit nasty.
About twenty feet into the room is when the trapped floor begins, so most people suspect it's relatively safe when nothing has happened this far into the room. Now the fun begins. I flipped a coin to decide on the color, and which ever one you pick, this is how the trap works.
Let's say you picked white. The first white square a PC steps on immediatly sets the trap. If anyone steps on a square surrounding the PC who has set the trap, the square fires up into the air on a powerful spring, driving anyone on it straight into the ceiling for XdX amount of damage (whichever suits your fancy.) If you want to get real nasty, alternate the trapped color every round or so :D

A friend of mine designed this in a FPS game for a custom multiplayer level.

24. King Tut's Bad Joke - The PCs are being pursued closely by multiple enemies (hopefully stronger than them or an illusion). The PCs come to a twisting hall (so they cannot charge away) with doors on either side. Inside every door the room immediately drops 20 ft onto spikes as they enter. So named as it is in a pyramid/similar desert themed tomb.

The players enter a narrow hallway with a small staricase leading up to a large, decrative door. A spot check should tell a PC that the walls are covered in a slick, oily liquid, and their are large scrape marks all along the wall. The door is made of stone, and has no appearant keyhole. It is also stuck, so a strong brute character will have to pull it open. The strength check to open is 22 or higher, depending on what level your pc's are at. When this Stength check succeeds, the PC's will be in for a surprice. The entire wall the door is set in completely slides towards the PC's and continues towards them on the greased walls, and will continue down the stairs after them.
In the particular event I used this trap, I had put an open portcullis at the bottom of the stairs, and a pit to jump over. The Portcullis drops after so long, and if any of the PC's haven't cleared it, then they buy the farm. Or so they thought. The PC's who didn't make it fell into the pit, and the stone slab trapped door fell into the pit. Everyone assumed they had been squished. THey had actually falled down a funnel-like chute that dropped them into another part of the dungeon. It's a good way to split the party up if you need to.

hehe - I just thought of an evil continuation for Ravenwood's trap. When the characters fall down the chute into another part of the dungeon, they find themselves in a room with no visible doors. when they land, the room starts filling with sand. xD they have to find the secret door in order to get out safely.

The PCs enter a large room(say, 100x100 ft). They are standing on a small stair(sai a couple of feet high) The floor before them is covered with about a foot of oil. On the other side of the room is the exit, a large stone door. The PCs will ofcourse want to continue. However, as soon as they step into the oil, the door behind them closes(it's a large, heavy stone slab). From the ceiling, a torch starts to lower on a chain(ca 10 rounds before it hits the oil). The PC will scramble madly to get out. The doors leading out will each have a fiendinsh riddle on them, that must be solved, or a large number of difficult locks(or whatever).

And now, the trick: the torch is an everburning torch. It cannot, under any circumstances, light the oil... More of an annoyance than a trap really.

The players enter a room with a 25-foot ceiling, and a floor of 30-feet by 20 feet. Two levers are on the far wall. As soon as they enter the room, both doors bolt down and the PCs are trapped. Closer inspection on the levers reveals two traps, Wall Trap and Ceiling Trap respectively. (The room's exit walls are 20 feet apart, while the wall-trap walls are 30 feet apart.)

An inscription on the wall reads in Common: "Throw one switch and start the other." That is to say, if the players deactivate the Wall Trap, the Ceiling Trap automatically starts falling down to the floor, or vice-versa, where the two non-exit walls close in on each other. The doors do not open after a trap activates.

In the room there are many random items (You can change this list as much as you like):
-A Jar filled with beads
-A large Beam (approx 25 feet long)
-A chest containing sand
-Any other random items you choose (the more there are, the harder it is to figure out the trap.)

The Solution- put the beam straight-up from ceiling to floor. Then deactivate the wall trap. The ceiling trap will not fall down on the PCs, and the doors open.

Okay here is how this one works...The PC's enter a room that is filled with mirrors (this can be to kill or just annoy). When they do an impenatrable wall falls and shuts the door they entered. Now each one of the mirrors will show the person in it as beautiful or having the one thing they want the most. However when a PC touches the mirror (or multiple PC's at once) (they are breakable, but when broke the status affects as said below apply to the WHOLE party) they are instantly transported to the other side and the mirror used is gone. Only they are ugly or physically deformed [spine twists into a 360 loop, spleen explodes, tongue splits into 100ths, etc] (never mentally). So take away CHA, STR, DEX, and CON points here there and everywhere. If they don't find their way out they may be killed from ability drain. Eventually they may reach the other side of the room with the exit mirror. This mirror however will be the reflection of a wall (due to the reflections of the wall that fell in the beginning off of the other mirrors in the room. Once this mirror is touched or smashed all the PC's are reverted back to their stats they had when they first entered the room.

The PC's enter a room and there is a pillar in the middle. Upon entering they may step on a pressure plate or trip wire that causes the exit door across the room to close. The pillar in the middle of the room however has a lever or button. Upon activating the 5 foot squares surrounding the pillar in an X open up (the lever pusher falls thru). Then iron bars swing above the trapped from the top of the pit out of the stone to seal them in. Then the pit starts to fill with a liquid of your choice (or if you are evil ochre jellies and slimes ). Then the other PC's have up to 1d10 rounds to break the iron bars holding their comrade and get him out. Once the time is up the pit is full to the top with liquid and a Cone of Cold spell is cast multiple times upon the liquid. Effectively freezing the caught PC within a block of ice. This extra weight also sets off a pressure plate opening the exit door, but now how do you free the frozen PC? If you take him out the pressure drops and the door shuts again. :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh

I haven't read the entire thread and hope I'm not repeating anyone here.

This is one I used to kill off some of those greedy bastard players. They enter a room, filled with hordes of unimaginable treasure. The only thing between them and plunder it all is a pair of demonic looking wolves, engulfed in flames. The elemental creatures will not leave the piles of treasure they guard for any reason but will attack anyone who tries to come near the piles. If anyone pays attention they will notice the stench of oil filling this room, and that is what they are standing ankle deep in. Killing the wolves will cause them to fall to the ground, igniting the oil and burning away the hemp ropes that hold this rooms heavy iron porticullis up. The porticullus will slam down and trap everyone inside with the inferno. you can even go the Ninja Scroll route and have them become covered in molten gold, eventually cooling into statues of themselves.

This is a good trap for those hulking fighters who never appreciate their rogues. The PC's approach a door that looks like heavy, reinforced, and strong, however, it appears to be made from very soft wood, like Balsa, or some other kind. Their are no visible key holes, or anything to pick as far as locks go, but the door appears to be stuck. This whole door is trapped, however, so the Rogue will be able to disable it if he finds it to be trapped. However, most fighter/barbarian types will probably just try to smash on through. In doing so, the moment a momentous force (ie, axe, sword, fists, etc) strike the door, the door will explode, sending shards of wooden fragments into the PC's. The PC who struck the door in the first place will take 3d6 piercing damage, people within 5 feet take 2d6, and people within 10 feet take 1d6, and those outside of that get to point and laugh at the splinter covered party.

32: The "Home Alone II" trap

Our brave and fearless PCs come to a door that is heavy reinforced wood. It does not appeared to be locked. However, when the knob is turned and pulled, there is a lot of resistance, like someone on the other side is pulling on the door also. The person pulling the door should roll a strength check of about 15 or so, and then everyone must make a listen check to hear distant rumbling getting closer. The door opens freely now, and anyone can see that it opens to a ramp leading up, and that a rope attached to the otherside of the door just pulled the support out from a large, round boulder, and now it's hurdling towards the PCs. This is really fun especially if they make a run for it, because the boulder take up all the space, so there's no getting around in, and in the campaign I ran when I put this in, the corridor leading to the door in the first place was really long, and on a slight grade, giving the boulder a never ending slope to role down.

33: The door of Confusion

This trap gave my PCs one hell of a time. It appears to be made completely out of glass and the PC's reflections show, so they can't see through it. Technically this is a mirror of opposition. The door only allows one person to go through at one time. When a PC goes through, he open the door, steps through and the door slams behind him. He has just entered a room facing the rest of his party. Wait for some "what the hell" 's to be murmured from the rest of the party but it goes like this.
There is a party just like you, but of completely opposite alignments. When one PC goes through the door, their member of the bizarro party, goes through too, and finds himself facing what looks like his party, while the PC is on the other side looking at what he thinks is his own party, but is really the Bizarro party. But they don't know that, and it is almost guarenteed that multiple PC's will go through the door, go back through the door, and so on, until they finally realize they're dealing with their opposites, and must fight (now would be a good time to drop hints about the opposing party being evil, or good, whichever...) And now you must fight, but they're so damn mixed up, nobody knows who's who anymore.
This is a very confusing trap, however, it works as a great encounter.

As the PCs move into this 50ft by 50ft room, they can see that there is a door on the opposing wall, and that the ceiling is 20ft high. The ceiling and floor of this chambre are made of smooth stone, and the door on the opposing wall is made out of a stone. About 1/4 of the way up the wall is a ring of green metal, about 6 inches wide. On the sides of both doors (the one the pcs entered and the one on the opposing wall) are 2 levers, and there are 2 others, 1 on each of the other walls. These are painted Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Purple, and Black. Also, they are set at the same level as the green metal ring, breaking the ring into several peices along the wall.

The placement of the levers doesnt actually matter, nor do the order of the colors. But as all of the PCs move into the room, both of the doors shut and seal themselves, becoming completly unopenable. Also, the ceiling begins to slowly fall down, at about 1ft per round. The PCs should begin to panic at this point, and will notice the levers. Pulling these will not cause the ceiling to stop or rise, it will actually cause one of the following effects:

1: Causes the ceiling to fall faster, at 2ft per round instead of 1.
2: Causes holes in the ceiling to open up.
3: Causes spikes 1ft long to come out of the holes in 2
4: Engulfs the lever puller in flames, dealing 2d6 fire damage.
5: Gives the lever puller a short shock, dealing 1d6 electricity damage.
6: Force effect pushes lever puller back 10ft.

The answer to this trap is actually the ring of green metal. Touching the metal on each of the walls causes the ceiling to slop falling, and reverses the effects of 2 and 3 above. Running ones hands along the entire length of the metal ring causes the ceiling to return to normal height, along with unsealing the 2 doors.

For increased Evilness, you can swap out the effects of the levers with more devastating events, such as causing the room to be slowly filled with water.

35. (I Think) Players enter a room that is 20x20 or so. In the room is a handfull of torches on the walls, all lit, and a large tresure chest or sarcophagus (big enough to contain the nasty suprise). The chest is locked with a standard DC for the party, or you can even have them find the key. As soon as the chest is opened, the lid flies back and reveals a Gibbering Mouther. Once the monster is killed, the corpse can be moved to reveal a second door in the bottom of the chest that reveals the treasure.

Anyone who has played DSII knows that finding a Mimic protecting the treasure at the end of a quest is a real pain. This trap is particulary nasty if the party has already been beaten down by everything else in the dungeon.